When studios packed up 2020 films and shuffled them off to 2021 after the coronavirus closed theaters for the majority of the year, it created a bit of a logjam for several potential Oscar contenders. Will that impact their chances to score a nod when they have two (or more) major films in contention? It could, we’ve seen it happen in the past, but often campaigns – and voters – begin to focus on a single film and coalesce around that performance.
Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Benedict Cumberbatch are all doubled up this year and Andrew Garfield is tripled up. Affleck and Damon both star in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel together while Affleck also has Adrian Lyne’s Deep Water and Damon has Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater. Driver, who incidentally also co-stars in The Last Duel (but in a supporting role) has two major roles: in Leos Carax’s original musical Annette, which will debut at Cannes, and the highly anticipated House of Gucci (also from Scott) and co-starring Lady Gaga. At worst, Driver could score double Golden Globe nominations in both Comedy/Musical and Drama categories, respectively, but voters will have to decide where to cash their chips come Oscar time.
Like Driver, this year is chock full of actors in musicals but how many, if any, can parlay that from a Golden Globe nomination to an Oscar? Ben Platt, who won a Tony for Dear Evan Hansen, stars in the film version of the musical for Universal. The aforementioned Garfield has Lin-Manuel Miranda’s feature directorial debut tick, tick…boom! for Netflix and Anthony Ramos has the potential summer hit In the Heights, also from Miranda. Two more new musicals are also ready to take the stage: Cyrano, starring Emmy winner Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), and based on Cyrano de Bergerac and Paul Mescal in Carmen, based on the classic opera and featuring all new songs by Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Nicholas Britell. That’s a deep bench of talent and possibility in a year that’s already stacked in Best Actor.
After a stellar year of representation for people of color in the Oscar acting categories (nine of 20 nominations), this year brings a wealth of previous Oscar winners and hopefuls looking to earn their first. Two-time winner Denzel Washington is a sure bet for Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth for A24 and two-time nominee Will Smith as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard is one of those ‘good on paper’ predictions but I expect Warner Bros to go hard for him. Two-time Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Green Book) will make a play for his first lead nomination in Swan Song, which just wrapped for Apple. Michael B. Jordan is coming with A Journal for Jordan, directed by none other than Denzel Washington and Jonathan Majors, who should have been nominated for last year’s Da 5 Bloods, will have Netflix’s The Harder They Fall.
I’m keeping an eye on Mohsen Tanabandeh in Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero from Amazon, which is hitting Cannes this summer as well as Michael Gandolfini, son of James, in the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark.
As I mentioned in my Best Actress piece, the Sundance film Mass has yet to secure a distributor (which is giving me a lot of pause) but if it does and it lands a good campaigner then Jason Isaacs can become a contender.
Here is my first take on Best Actor contenders for the 2022 Oscars, with an alphabetized list of likely contenders then a ranked list.
My ranked Best Actor predictions for May 2021
1. Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24)
2. Christian Bale – Canterbury Glass (20th Century Studios)
3. Bradley Cooper – Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures)
4. Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
5. Will Smith – King Richard (Warner Bros)
6. Michael B. Jordan – A Journal for Jordan (Sony Pictures)
7. Peter Dinklage – Cyrano (MGM)
8. Mahershala Ali – Swan Song (Apple)
9. Clifton Collins Jr. – Jockey (Sony Pictures Classics)
10. Anthony Ramos – In the Heights (Warner Bros)
Films currently without distribution or possibly unfinished in time
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